Demon Eyes

The ground gives out under her, but Ygne cannot stop now. It is not allowed. It is forbidden because she forbade it. She knows that the fate of kingdom lies on her shoulders, she can feel the lives weight her down but even so she keeps running. Her leather shoes are worn and weary, her dress long torn, but she cannot turn back because she is not meant to turn around now.

She is the prophecy in the human shape, a hand that will free them all, including herself. Find the witches, it said, and it sounded easy enough. Find the witches, end the terror. But the woods are deep and the woods are dark. They’re filled with trees and poison and animals and flowers and far more dangerous things. Things unseen, but heard; things unheard, but seen. She isn’t sure which frightens her more – the thought that there is something there, in the dark, ready to pounce, or the knowledge that there is nothing there at all.

Ygne cannot trust her mind now. All she can do is run. Run and catch up with the divine, run and catch up with fate, then strange her with her bare hands. Save them all, because that’s what she’s meant to do. She has to be hero of other people if she cannot be her own.

Kill the Witch Queen, the woods seem to be shouting, kill the Witch Queen.

But she cannot return with those words as her only legacy, as her only advice. She has to have something bigger, something secure, because a single human like her cannot kill a Witch Queen. Some say you need a name to kill witch, others claim a face and then there are those who claim you need no more than a body.

What use? Ygne is a child of prophecy, but she cannot see beyond the veil. She doesn’t know what lies beneath the Witch Queen’s cowl, even though she’s pretty certain that the thing lurking beneath the shroud is not human at all. She cannot read minds, either, and she doesn’t know the Witch Queen’s name. Does a person like that, an entity like her, have a name? Does a thing like her have a beginning, a point where it wasn’t what it is now?

Ygne is not meant to be asking questions. She’s meant to be saving them. Running, saving, it comes about the same. Nobody gets out of the Kingswood, not ever since the reign of the Witch Queen has begun. The Witchwood, they should’ve called it.

And then, the stories among peasants. Ygne’s not sure how come the Witch Queen didn’t hear them, although it is far more likely that she could not find it within herself to care. The Witch Queen, she hears and sees everything and nobody is safe. Nobody survives. Death comes to all in the end, it is true, but it is the Witch Queen that makes his job easier, that brings people to Death so it would not have to travel for too long.

Ygne’s hear the stories. Very briefly, while working in the castle, she’s also heard the screams.

It has to end.

Kill the Witch Queen, in even pulses the wood whispers. She cannot kill the Witch Queen. She’s not a warrior, she’s the maid. All she can do is fulfil the prophecy or die trying. Play at being her0 even though the closest to the tales she’s gotten was the feel of knight’s beard on her cheek and his hands around her bare waist. Even though she was born low and even though she was noticed only after the belated prophecy, after the accidental wounds she’d acquired beforehand matched with the alleged birthmarks of a hero.

She was made into the icon for the low-class, left out here to die.

There is a roar behind her. She doesn’t turn around and runs instead, only spots of light guiding her way. The forest is thick and covered in eternal night. The day’s light gets inside by small, rare openings in the treetops and it can guide her only briefly. In her panic, it cannot guide her at all.

There’s a flash of light – orange and warm and she realises it’s fire when it passes close to her, only in a form of small stroke. Nothing burns though, because the forest is humid air smells of rain even though it hasn’t rained in many moons. She would know. People were starving and the Witch Queen used them for entertainment with no intention of helping them.

That’s where she makes her mistake – she turns around towards the source of warmth and she’s not sure what made her think it was friendly. It was the fire, probably. It was probably the well-known smell of smoke and the chill that’s been resident in her bones for the past day and her empty stomach which reminded her that fire normally meant comfort and food.

Foolish, foolish girl!

She gets her hair singed then and sickly smell fills the air, but she’s fine. The fire doesn’t spread further on the curls so she can easily keep running. She’s giving up on herself, though—there is something that’s most definitely not a normal animal behind her, but she cannot escape it because she’s too tired and her lungs burn.

The white and grey specks of light disappear. It is not night yet because it is too soon, but there is nothing to guide her now so she keeps running. This is the worst case scenario – hearing and seeing and knowing you’re going to get caught. Fried, just like so many in the tales, only that she’s not a knight. She’s a maid who is going to burn whole before the dragon, because she didn’t even have an armour to tell the tale instead of her.

This deep in the Kingswood, nobody would find it even if she had one.

She doesn’t run for long, no—her robes, tattered and torn, catch on one thing or another. Sometimes, it feels like the forest is catching on to her, but no matter she still goes down, ruffled. There’s a rip ringing out as another part of her dress is torn, but she tries to get up before what she assumes it the dragon comes to her.

The ground beneath her is cold and solid. It’s not the earth she expected, but instead the stone, clean-cut and Ygne inhales, sharply. Find the Great Tomb, where the elder witches sleep. Find the Great Tomb, save them. Save yourself. She is so close, so close, she is so, so—she was so close. So close and now she’s going to die right there, right before her quest is complete.

Not today, not if she still has life running through her veins.

The ground goes downwards from the tomb, leaving a square, unnatural shape standing out. Some corrosion or water running this way, perhaps, but the structure has remained unmoved. She slides down this, getting dirt and water in her clothes all over again. No matter; all she wants is a shelter.

Instead, she sees an opening – small and in level with the ground, but large enough for her to squeeze through. Large enough for her, but not for the dragon. Once it’s lost its prey, it’ll go find another. Ygne takes a deep breath.



“You look just like my mother.” She startles at the accented voice and turns around, dizziness overpowering her in her quickness. The entrance to the tomb, the one she’s gotten through, is pitch dark. She can hear the dragon’s breath and she can smell the fire and ash and smoke, but nothing comes through.

Chills are running down her spine. The magic, the things woven in tales, they’re so prominent here that it makes her skin crawl.

Before her is a girl. No older than seven or eight, dark-skinned and gaunt with pretty face and dark eyes. Ygne doesn’t like the look of them. They’re searching, but at the same time seem to have found their point of interest. The child seems wise, but also naive and treacherous. Ygne cannot trust a single thing here, least of all her mind. She cannot trust the child and she leans away instead, ripped tatters dragging across the floor when she moves.

“Are you from Sivo, too?” The child’s voice is innocent and well-meaning. Ygne narrows her eyes, then nods. She’s not sure how the little girl knows this. “I know by the skin.”

And by the curls and by the way they fold their clothing. Sivo is neat and well-organised, but they’re a lot more strict than the Kingdom. Then again, not really. Not since after the Witch Queen came.

This reminds her.

“I’m here to kill the Witch Queen.” Like it’s something she goes about every day, queen-killing. Like she’s a hero out of a tale and not a maid doing what she’s told. Like she’s the actual child of prophecy and not an innocent lookalike made to give people hollow hope.

“I cannot help you.” The child looks like she’s morphing. She doesn’t move but she twitches at the same time; there is skin and there are bones, there are eyes and there are shrouds about her. Only her small smile remains the same. “Killing makes me nervous.” A pause, and then: “But the Lady might know what to do. She’s over there—“

Over there, where Ygne can only see darkness and hear voices calling her name from the depths. Over there, where there was nothing until now. Over there, in the heart of the Great Tomb, where the three witches dwell. The child extends her hand towards Ygne, as if though in some kind of blessing, and the woman runs before that hand can reach her.